Saxophone is a conical-bored woodwind music instrument, usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece. As shown in FIG. 1A, the saxophone's bore is effectively conical with a number of curves, the first at the neck, one about three quarters down the cone, called the bow, and one slight curve near the bell, which points more or less directly forward and upward from the player at about waist level. The saxophone produces different notes using a key system comprising of keys, pads, pad cups and tone holes. When pressure is applied to a key, it opens or closes one or more of the tone holes by lifting or lowering a pad that is contained in a pad cup. The pad cup is connected to the key via a mechanism including a rock shaft supported by a pair of studs with a bar or arm connecting the key and the pad cup. The pad fit inside a pad cup, usually made of leather or leather-like materials, covers a corresponding tone hole and form an airtight seal. Depending on the locations of the pad and corresponding tone hole on the saxophone, the pitch can be raised or lowered. When a saxophone is not being played, some of the pad cups are in an open position, some are in a closed position. This configuration is referred to as a normal position of the pad cup in this paper. For example, the normal position of the pad cup for tone hole D# (D Sharp) is closed.
When a player plays a saxophone, some of the breaths are condensed inside the saxophone. As a result, moistures (e.g., saliva of the player) are accumulated in and around the lip of the tone holes after each usage. For those tone holes with normal position closed (e.g., D# tone hole), the accumulated moistures are trapped between the lip of the tone holes and the pad covered the lip. The accumulated moistures need to be dried out quickly. Otherwise the residue of the moistures would cause damages, which result into very costly repairs. For example, the contact area (i.e., a circular grove 134 as shown in FIGS. 1C and 1D) between the pad and the lip of the tone hole may become sticky. As a result, the pad needs to be replaced. More serious damage may be caused by corrosion of the tone hole lip due to acid contents of the accumulated moistures. The notes cannot be produced properly. For the D# tone hole, there is even higher probability to accumulate moistures due to its location near the bow of the saxophone.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a device that can keep the D# tone hole open, when a saxophone is not being played such that the D# tone hole and pad can have better chance to dry out.